Using the Style Panel

The 'Style' panel provides a range of tools for applying different styles to the elements and connectors in a diagram, to emphasize their importance or relevance in the context of the diagram. An element's fonts, fill and borders, and a connector's line, can be colored and styled, and the settings can be individually copied to other elements and connectors or grouped and saved as a style that can be applied to other elements and connectors.

Available Facilities

Facility

Description

See also

Style List

Click on the drop-down arrow on this field and select an existing style to apply to the selected object(s) in the diagram.

Save Style

Click on this icon to display a short menu of options for creating styles.

Save as New Style - save the style of the selected object under a new name (for example, after changing the appearance of the object); a dialog displays in which you type the new style name, and when you click on the OK button the style is added to the 'Style List' field

Save Style - save the style of the object under its existing style name (after changing the appearance of the object)

Refresh List - change the 'Style List' field setting back to 'Default Style'

Delete Current Style - delete the style currently shown in the 'Style List' field; the field reverts to 'Default Style' but the objects using that style stay as they are

Get Style

Click on this icon to copy the style of the currently selected object, to immediately apply to other objects.

Apply Style

Click on this icon to apply the style copied using the 'Get Style' icon to the currently selected object. You can keep clicking on new objects and on this icon to apply the style to several objects. As long as the style characteristic applies to the object (such as line width and line color) you can apply the style to any kind of object, although you would usually apply a style to closely related objects.

Set Font

Click on this icon to set the text font, style, size and effects for the selected element(s). (You can also select from a small range of text colors.)

Text Color

Click on this icon to select from a wide range of colors in which to display the text of the selected element(s).

Fill Color

Click on this icon to select from a wide range of colors to set as the fill color of the selected element(s).

Line Color

Click on this icon to select from a wide range of colors to set for the borders of the selected element(s) or lines of the selected connector.

Line Width

Click on the 'spinner' arrows to set the selected element border or connector line width to a value between 1 (thinnest) and 5 (thickest).